Bøger i Religion and Politics serien

A revelatory look at the life and times of Augusto Sandino, Nicaraguan rebel leader, national icon, messianic prophet.

Heated debates about "what really happened in Waco" are a recurring public drama. Yet, little or no attention has been given to the work of the negotiators who talked with the Branch Davidians. In this important book, Jayne Seminare Docherty utilizes largely unexplored sources of data to explain why fifty-one days of negotiations by federal officials failed to get all of the Branch Davidians to exit the compound. Learning Lessons from Waco applies a theory of worldview conflicts to the more than 12,000 pages of the negotiation transcripts from Waco. Through perceptive analysis of the situation, Docherty offers a fresh perspective on the activities of law enforcement agents. She shows how the Waco conflict resulted from a collision of two distinct worldviews--the FBI's and the Davidians'--and their divergent notions of reality. By exploring the failures of the negotiations, she also urges a better understanding of encounters between rising religious movements and dominant social institutions. Finally, the resulting model is applicable to other conflict resolution processes such as mediation and facilitated problem solving.

The radical underground environmental movement, Earth First! emerged in response to rapid commercial development of the American wilderness. Martha F. Lee provides a profound inquiry into the movement's apocalyptic doctrine and into its beliefs and strategies, which include some spectacular, dangerous, and often illegal activities.

When over 900 followers of the Peoples Temple religious group committed suicide in 1978, they left a legacy of suspicion and fear. Hearing the Voices of Jonestown restores the individual voices that have been erased so that we can better understand what was created - and destroyed - at Jonestown, and why.

Explores the politics of religious engagement in the public sphere by comparing two modernist conservative movements: the Mormon Church in the US and the Gulen movement in Turkey. The book traces the public activities and activism of these two influential and controversial actors at the state, political society, and civil society domains.

Explores a moment of intense religious upheaval and transformation in France between 1880 and 1920. During this time, women became increasingly involved in faith-based organizations, engaging in social and political action both to expand women's rights and to ensure that religion remained part of the public debate about France's identity.

In Blood and Faith, Berry explores the causes of a shift away from, and resulting hostility toward, Christianity among white nationalists, as well as the challenges it has created for contemporary white nationalists who seek access to the conservative American political mainstream.

Explores the relationship among the German confessional divide, collective memories of religion, and the construction of German national identity and difference.

Provides an unprecedented first-person account of how a small spiritual community progressed from mainstream religious beliefs to increasingly extreme positions, eventually transforming into a domestic terrorist group. Written after the author's release from prison, this cogent narrative reveals the deceptive allure of extremist movements and the unmatched power of charismatic leadership.

The Great Rebellion claimed tens of thousands of lives and traumatized imperial psyches for decades. This work delves into the fractious relations between Indian communities and their clergy and the role that such tensions played as a major causal factor in the rebellion.

This work provides an account of the Church Universal Triumphant (CUT), from its modest origin as a tiny fragment of the esoteric community to its growth into a wealthy and formidable organization in the 1960s and early 1970s. It also covers its leader, Elizabeth Clare Prophet.

An in-depth look at how various Islamic communities, from moderate to revolutionary, localize Islam by negotiating between the changing concerns of the Muslims and the expectations of the state in Western Europe.

What electoral mobilization choices do Islamist opposition parties make? How do they relate to authoritarian incumbents? Which key factors influence the choices these parties make? This explores the answers to these questions by studying the path of the Islamist Party of Justice and Development (PJD) in Morocco from 1992 to 2007.

The year 2000 has created an intense expectation in American history. This study reveals three patterns within millennial groups: those which are assaulted by outsiders, those which initiate violence to preserve the religious goal, and those which possess an ideology that sanctions violence.

Currently part of Poland, the city of Poznan was, prior to World War II, on the edge of a predominantly German sphere of settlement to the west and a predominantly Polish sphere to the east. Robert E. Alvis tracks the rise of nationalism in Poznan and examines how religious affiliation factored into the process.

This work covers the story of an important antebellum reform movement: ecclesiastical abolitionism.

Offers a collection of essays that presents reflections upon the birth, proliferation, enduring appeal, and future of extraterrestrial mythology. This work explores the reports of aliens and the changing nature of abduction experience, even its sexual dimension, in relation to literature, cultural practices, and ideology.

A biography of William Dudley Pelley, an important figure in the development of right-wing extremism in the United States called by detractors the ""Star-Spangled Fascist."" This book places Pelley within the history of both the anti-Semitic right and American occult movements.

While Western Europe is widely considered to be the most secularized region of the world,this work asserts that, in certain cases, intense religion has manifested itself outside the church through political channels. It focuses on contemporary movements, developing the term ""missionary politics.

This work covers the early 1970s, a period when the Vietnam War and student protests were on the wane as new religious groups grew in size. It maintains that the failure of political activism led former radicals to become involved with groups such as the Hare Krishnas and Scientology.

When 900 followers of the People's Temple religious movement committed suicide in 1978, they left a legacy of suspicion and fear. This text puts human faces on the events, confronting theoretical religious questions in an attempt to reconcile how utopian ideals come to meet such misguided ends.

Although apocalyptic visions and predictions have been part of contemporary Islam, this work covers this disparate but influential body of writing. It suggests that Islam began as an apocalyptic movement and has retained an apocalyptic and messianic tone.